I haven’t read Kafka’s The Trial on which Tom Basden’s play, Joseph K, is loosely based. And like a lot of non-readers of the famous novel, as Alan Bennett points out in Writing Home, I have got it all wrong. It isn’t humourless and it doesn’t take place in vast, soulless government offices.

Bennett says the topography of the novel is constructed out of burrows and garrets and cubby holes in Prague. However, at Bats Meg Rollandi’s clever London setting is a cramped two level structure with four rooms separated by venetian blinds for doors that can be opened and closed quickly which allows director Uther Dean to keep the action flowing smoothly.

The lack of height above the stage at Bats is turned into an asset. An attic-like room, in which the actors can never stand fully upright, underlines the absurdity of Joseph’s situation as well as the feeling of a world out of kilter. And it is our contemporary world that is out of kilter, not Kafka’s.

Joseph, a London banker, learns on his thirtieth birthday of his arrest when he is having a shower and is expecting his sushi to be delivered. He can’t be told why he is under arrest by two men who aren’t policemen (they’re “volunteers”) but they make him sign a form to say he is under arrest but then they let him stay at home ostensibly a free man.

But his cell phone doesn’t work, his points on his Boots card disappear, his passport is rejected and two incompetent employees at the customers’ complaints bureau can only lodge his complaints about the procedure, not about his arrest or why he was arrested.

The verbal and physical comedy for most of the play’s 95 running time is darkly amusing but as the play progresses and Joseph’s predicament deepens into a bureaucratic quagmire the play seems to stall despite the best efforts of its excellent cast of Paul Waggott as Joseph and Ralph McCubbin Howell, Erin Banks and Sam Hallahan who play numerous roles including Joseph’s brother, a lawyer who collects dolls, a sex-starved intern and a bank executive.

Nevertheless, recent events in Britain, the United States and here make Joseph K a timely reminder of the dangers that surround us all. 

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It was a century ago next year that German author Franz Kafka embarked on his dystopian novel, The Trial. Three years ago, British writer /comedian (and member of the popular comedy quartet ‘Cowards’), Tom Basden, premiered his updated version Joseph K, relocated to London. Now the high-ranking bank executive’s world has cellphones, talkback radio, international air travel to conferences … not to mention post ‘9/11’ and London Bombings security crackdowns, for which read ‘surveillance’, and the likes of Guantanamo Bay.

More recently, here in NZ, we have witnessed the Ruatoki Raids, the Kim DotCom debacle, the indecent rush to pass the GCSB Bill, alleged breaches of privacy during the Henry Enquiry into the leaking of the Kitteridge Report (on the GCSB), and a number of other challenges to our fond belief we live in a democracy (citizen-initiated referendum, anyone?).

What might once have been conveniently shrugged off as a paranoid fantasy, then, has an unnerving resonance here and now. Yes, the insidious phenomenon of anonymous accusation dates back to the Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism and beyond; it was ever thus. And nothing has changed – or ever will – when it comes to the fallibilities of the individuals at every level of the systemic ‘infrastructure’ tasked with maintaining ‘security’ and defending our ‘freedom’.

Even as I Google through cyberspace for correct spelling, dates and terminology, I can’t help but wonder where my metadata is going, what alerts are being triggered by which words and whether or not – if someone should suddenly decide I need to be investigated – I have added to what might be seen as incriminating evidence of … whatever it is I might be suspected of.

See? Paranoia is insidious. What we witness with Joseph K is the subjective experience of the titular character over the year beginning with his 30^th birthday and ending with his 31^st; known in social psychology circles as a predictable crisis in adult life. And although the crime for which he is arrested is never specified, so that neither he nor we can assess his guilt or innocence, he does – inevitably – become his own worst enemy; not simply a victim but part of the problem, impacting other lives too with his incompetence and lack of empathy. 

As we witness the slo-mo train wreck of his disintegrating life, therefore, we might also be willing him to handle things differently – which adds immeasurably to our sense of engagement with this splendid production by the aptly named co-op ‘my accomplice’, directed by Uther Dean with a formidably talented cast of four and splendid design elements.

Meg Rollandi has wonderfully expanded the Bats Out-of-Site space with a two–tiered set that reaches back to hitherto hidden depths. While posts and Venetian blinds that double as doors may inhibit the odd sightline in certain seats, the metaphor of obfuscation is entirely apt. Rollandi’s costume designs are also excellent, not least because they capture the essence of each character (there are 16) while allowing for many quick changes.

The lighting design by Nick Zwart (who also constructed the set) adds appropriate texture. And Tane Upjohn-Beatson’s precise and often unnerving sound design is absolutely superb (who knew a whip and a nail gun could sound the same).

The technical operating of Grace Morgan-Riddell (lights) and Jen Currie (sound), and the sometimes onstage and mostly backstage contributions of stage manager Kate Clarkin, assisted by Pip Drakeford, must also be acknowledged for bringing the design to life and ensuring the drama of Joseph K’s fate maintains its inexorable flow.  

Paul Waggott claims the role of Joseph K unto himself in no uncertain terms. From the relaxed birthday boy, through bemusement, confusion and anger to total discombobulation and ultimate defeat, he doesn’t miss a beat. His complete immersion in the experience draws us into unavoidable empathy.

Both the political satire and psychological ‘truth’ inherent in Joseph K work best when we recognise and believe in the characters whose behaviours variously affect Joseph, even when they are played at a level of caricature justified by his possibly distorted perception of them.  

Juggling 11 characters between them, many of whom appear more than once, Erin Banks and Ralph McCubbin Howell find the ideal balance with well-delineated distinctions that go much deeper than mere changes in accent and costume.

Banks, especially, fully inhabits each of her six roles: the conscience-free contract arrester, Nathan Spicer; the conscientious bank executive, Wendy Kaufmann; the naïve office worker, Rose; the sexually frustrated perpetual legal intern, Leni; the investigating team-member Mason Disney; the glazer who can see through it all, Bear. A stunning achievement.

McCubbin Howell likewise relishes each of his well-defined roles: Gabriel Clarke, the Pinteresquely menacing arrester; Dan, the by-the-book office worker; Ian Huld, the doll-collecting and ailing Oxbridge lawyer; the obsessive Yvette, who heads the mysteriously-named ICSP investigation; a handyman called David, who may or may not be part of the conspiracy.

In relatively realistic roles, Sam Hallahan achieves great contrast between Joseph’s blithely confident brother, Adam, and Morton Preece, the ever hopeful subordinate at the bank. His cameo roles – Leo the investigator’s assistant, and Colin Block, who thinks he’s winning because (thanks to Huld) his similar case is forever being postposed – are astutely pitched.  

There are also voices on intercoms, talk-back radio and an inter-active virtual lawyer DVD, all unerringly true to life. It’s important to note that while the ‘Kafkaesque’ experience used to imply a bureaucratic maze of obfuscation and unspecified menace perpetrated by an omnipotent State, this contemporary world manifests the syndrome in the private sector too – to which many functions of the State (including the power to arrest) have been assigned. Privatisation has in no way mitigated the problem.

Running for 95 minutes (no interval), Joseph K offers an inexorable descent into an increasingly surreal nightmare from which we, at least, are lucky enough to awake. Amid the rich array of memorable scenes, my favourite is the one where Joseph waits for his number to come up while Rose and Dan chit-chat at their work stations. It becomes hysterical in every sense of the word.

A brilliantly realised production, Joseph K is, dare I say, arresting, and not to be missed. 

[Afterthought: It must have been tempting to relocate the action to New Zealand but Basden’s version is so steeped in British brine it would have taken more than place-name changes to make it ours. Besides, Dean Parker’s adaptation was staged in Auckland in 2008 and that would probably be the one to revisit in a contemporary Kiwi context.]

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